Ep. 80 | Bo Yibo

I drove downtown not too long ago to meet with Jesse Appell to talk about his first book, "This was funnier in China" https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/This-Was-Funnier-in-China/Jesse-Appell/9781668087565 Jesse's been performing stand-up comedy and Xiangsheng 相声 for years no ...  Show more

I had the idea for this episode sometime during mid-summer 2025. Then I became distracted by the big project I'm working on now, then the holidays, sick cats, and the random hassles of life. This one's only 34 minutes long. My deepest apologies for all the mispronunciations of Ma ...  Show more

In the centre of China’s capital city, Beijing, lies a corpse that no one dares remove. It’s been 44 years since Mao Zedong’s body was laid to rest in the grandiose Chairman Mao Memorial Hall. He may be gone but he is not forgotten. To some, he’s the father of modern China. To ma ...  Show more

“Let us advance courageously, to change the backward condition of our country, and turn it into a modern and powerful socialist state!” Deng Xiaoping, a man purged by Mao and his followers twice before becoming leader of China, paved the way for a modern Chinese state and economy ...  Show more

A small group of revolutionaries formed the Chinese Communist Party in July 1921. Led by Chairman Mao, they fought their way to power in the world's most populous nation and have stayed in control since the end of China's civil war in 1949. Zhu Zhende was a young recruit in the P ...  Show more

The Qing Dynasty fell in 1911, ending imperialism in China. But the instability created a power struggle over the country’s future. Between the Warlords, the Nationalists, the Communists, and even the Japanese, one man seized control of China and turned it into the second largest ...  Show more